SIFFcast with Brett Morgen

Girl Asleep

SIFF Cinema Uptown | Best of SIFF 2016Winner: SIFF 2016 Grand Jury Prize, Official Competition Winner: SIFF 2016 Youth Jury Award, Best FutureWave Feature Journey into the absurd, scary, and beautiful heart of a teenage girl's mind after a disastrous 15th-birthday party sends Greta Driscoll into an imaginative dreamworld that is weirdly erotic, a little bit violent, and thoroughly ludicrous.

Set in the 'burbs of Australia and imbued with the sunny colors and flamboyant patterns of the '70s, Girl Asleep gives a glimpse into the tumultuous life of one teenager, days before her 15th birthday. Greta Driscoll's first day at school is unimpressive, to say the least. She's quickly befriended by the sweetest (but dorkiest) guy in her class, and immediately targeted by the popular girls with short skirts and even shorter tempers. Her picture-perfect housewife mother thinks it's a great idea to invite everyone in Greta's new class to her birthday celebration, and embarrassingly pastes invitations all over the school hallways. When everything that could go wrong at the party inevitably does, Greta escapes to her room and cries herself into a deep sleep, and is soon catapulted into a new, nightmarish dream world. Director Rosemary Myers bases her debut feature on an acclaimed stage play by actor Matthew Whittet, who plays Greta's father in the film. Beginning as a quirky teen comedy and taking sumptuous visual cues from Wes Anderson and Michel Gondry, Girl Asleep evolves into a dark, surrealist fantasy/drama that might be the only way to genuinely work through the strange inner workings of a teenage girl.

Director BiographyAustralian director Rosemary Myers has worked as the artistic director of Arena Theatre Company, as well as the artistic director of Queensland Performing Arts Centre's Out of the Box Festival in 2010. More recently, she has worked as the Artistic Director of Adelaide's Windmill Theatre. Girl Asleep is her first feature film.

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